RE: Strange behavior w/%editc()

Joe wrote:
>Hans, I respect your work, but these statements taken together frighten
the
>heck out of me.  Basically, reading this one might get the idea you
believe
>that RPG perhaps isn't such a good language, and that the lab knows what's
>good, and they're going to do it whether we like it or not.
>
>That's certainly NOT good news for those of us who believe RPG is the best
>language on the planet for development and OS/400 the best platform and
>DB2/400 the best database.  You asked in your earlier post who do I want
>working on my compiler, and I would have to say the number one requirement
>is that the person love the language!  I don't mean love it in such a way
>that you're blind to its faults, but you have to believe in the language
and
>what its done for the last 30 or so years - you have to have respect for
its
>past is order to take it into the future.
>
>Lack of respect for the past is what makes changes in the computer
industry
>so painful.  To me, one of IBM's enduring strengths has always been the
fact
>that it embraces its past while moving forward into the future.  Backward
>compatibility is the hardest thing in the world to do correctly, and the
>first thing that goes when a company forgets where it came from.  I have
to
>stress the idea that it's the maintenance programmers who have kept your
job
>viable, not the leading edge users of the latest BIFs and APIs.

Joe:  Well, I am certainly on record as saying that my own
personal favorite programming language is Python.  Second
is probably C, or perhaps SQL.  Do I "love" any of them?
That's a silly question.  I don't think any piece of
computer software deserves to the "loved".  Does a carpenter
love his saws and hammers?  Does a plumber love his wrenches
and plungers?  All these things are just tools, and if you
find a better tool for the job, you'd be fooolish not to
look into it.

The tools I use from 8 to 4, Monday to Friday are C and RPG
and the iSeries.  The tools I play with at home are Python
and PostGreSQL and Linux.

(I thought Java was cool, before I learned Perl.  I thought
Perl was cool, but then I learned Python.  I then realised
there was more to a good language than being "cool".)

Does the fact that I prefer programming in Python and C to
RPG mean I don't respect RPG and its users?  No, I don't
think so.  I wouldn't participate in fora such as this if I
didn't have the utmost respect for our products and our
customers.  But, for someone in my position, it is vitally
important to keep up to date with new technologies,
especially new languages.  Sometimes, experience with a
different language can suggest things that could be done
with RPG, if only for brain-storming purposes.  (I tried to,
but couldn't convince people here that /free calcs should
follow Python's indentation and continuation rules! ;-)

On the other hand, if I were always referring to RPG and IBM
and the iSeries in positive, glowing terms, would you trust
me at all?

You're right that it's the vast body of legacy code that
keeps RPG alive.  Backwards compatibility is practically a
religion in this company, and so you should expect RPG will
be around for a goodly long time, regardless of what's new
(if anything) in the language.

Cheers!  Hans

Hans Boldt, ILE RPG Development, IBM Toronto Lab, boldt@ca.ibm.com